FISHES OF THE EAST ATLANTIC COAST. 137 



brown spots. Body mure compressed above than below. Mouth 

 large, maxillary reaching beyond the orbit; preopercle feebly ser- 

 rated; opercle with three flat points; fins all very low, candal round- 

 ed. Head 3 1-6; depth 4. D. XL, 16; A. III., 8. West Indies, 

 north to Florida; reaches a weight of 400 or 500 pounds. 



TAKPT^Ar — Tarpom. — Mef/alop.'i f/m'ssoides. — (Gunther.) — Captain 

 Romans includes this species in nis list of the fishes of East Florida, 

 and spells the name with the o. Imagine a herring-shaped fish, five 

 or six feet long, with brilliant silvery scales, the size of a half dollar, 

 in schools of a dozen or twenty, leaping from the blue surface of a 

 summer sea. This is all that the angler usually sees of the tarpum. 

 Sometimes one of these glittering rushing monsters takes the hook. 

 What follows ? The line runs out with great speed till it has all 

 left the reel, where it parts at its weakest point, and the fish goes off 

 leaping, seaward. When hooked on a hand line similar results fol- 

 low. No man is strong enough to hold a large tarpum, unless he is 

 provided with a drag, or buoy, in the shape of an empty keg attached 

 to the line, which may retard or even stop the fish, after awhile. 

 Aided by a buoy the tarpum is sometimes taken with a liaa-poon, or 

 grains. 



I have heard of one instance of this fish being killed on a hand 

 line. As usual, the line was snatched from the hands of the fisher- 

 man in the first rush, and the tarpum went leaping down the river, 

 but the heavy leaden sinker struck it on the head and stunned it, so 

 that it was picked up by means of a boat. This happened in the 

 Halifax River. One Avas killed a few years ago in the Indian River, 

 as I am credibly informed, with rod and reel by an angler from 

 Philadelphia, after a contest of some hours. The fish was over six 

 feet long and weiti;hed more than 100 pounds — certainly one of the 

 greatest angling feats on record. It is a fish as much more power- 

 ful and diflicult to handle on a rod than the salmon, as the salmon is 

 more powerful than the black bass. This may perhaps be thought a 

 rash assertion, but it is gathered from my own experience. Twice 

 I have hooked a tarpum, and twice I lost mv tadde, without p^^^ck- 



[10] 



